Discriminating but not discriminatory love

WE need to love everyone. And since it is love we are
talking about, we have to give the best that we have, if not all of
ourselves, to everyone. This, in the end, is what is meant to be
discriminating but not discriminatory.

            Love is a never-ending affair that requires total
self-giving that is always renewed. By its very nature, it is meant to
be given to everyone and requires the giving of oneself to everyone.

            Christ is the model for this. He, in fact, commands us to
love everyone as he himself loves us. And the details of this love can
be found in the beatitudes, in the sermon of the mount, in the
greatest commandment and the second greatest that he articulated when
asked, and in the fact that he offered his life on the cross for us.

            In fact, everything in his life speaks eloquently of love.
He discriminates against no one. Even the sinners, even those who
crucified him, he loved, since he was always solicitous of their
condition and literally begged for their conversion and
transformation. He even asked forgiveness from his Father on their
behalf.

            We need to have this attitude deeply embedded in our
consciousness, and from there, develop the appropriate skills,
practices and habits as well as structures that would turn this ideal
into concrete reality.

            We have to be wary of the danger of complacency,
lukewarmness and self-satisfaction that can deceive us into thinking
we are doing enough when there is nothing enough where love is
concerned.

            These are our proximate and constant dangers. And they
come about due to our weaknesses and sinfulness. We tend to be lazy,
and to be improperly dominated by our preferences and other
attachments that blind us from giving what we ought to everyone.

            We need to acknowledge these weaknesses and sinfulness in
all their manifestations, and with humility ask the help of God to
overcome them and even to use them to do the things God wants us to do
for others. This is the proper way to deal with this predicament of
ours.

            If we have the proper attitude toward our weaknesses and
sinfulness, an attitude rooted on our faith, these weaknesses and
sinfulness would not be a big, insoluble problem. They can even be a
vehicle to do wonderful things out of love.

            Let’s remember what St. Paul once said: “To them that love
God, all things work together unto good...” (Rom 8,28) It’s important
that we continue to have a gung-ho attitude toward our life in spite
of our shortcomings, failures and mistakes.

            With Christ’s redemptive work carried to its fullness in
his passion, death and resurrection, we have no reason to be sad due
to our weaknesses. Besides, sadness only complicates things and
hinders us to do what we are supposed to do.

            We just have to wage a continuing struggle against our
tendency to get wrapped up in our world, oblivious of the needs of the
others and of the reality outside. This bad tendency can be shown in
our inclination to be lazy, self-centered, arrogant, vain, greedy,
lustful, distracted, attached to material and worldly things, etc.

            We have to try our best to develop a universal heart, able
to love everyone including those whom we may consider to be unlovable
or whom with our human estimations we regard as our enemies.

            We just have to rev up our concern for the others to a
heroic degree, never sparing in our generosity, especially in our
prayers and sacrifices for them which, before being expressed into
concrete deeds, are the fundamental and indispensable ways of showing
our love for others.

            For this, we have to be willing to be understanding and
compassionate with the others, ever mindful and thoughtful of them,
quick to forgive, slow to anger as Christ is, eager to bear all their
burdens without complaining.

            For this we have to train especially our emotions and
passions that usually react to things at the instance of our mere
natural, if not, physical appreciation of things. We have to purify
them with our faith, hope and charity, through prayers, study of the
doctrine of our faith, sacrifices and mortification, and other
spiritual and ascetical exercises.

            This is how we can be truly discriminating in our love for
everyone, excluding no one. Obviously, given our human condition
constrained by space and time, we need to have strategies that require
us to be selective in our love if only to reach everyone in the best
way.

Loosening and tightening

AS we go through life in all its twists and turns, its ups
and downs, its ebb and flow, we certainly need to do a lot of
adjusting and adapting. We also need to do a lot of planting,
cultivating and cutting if only to avoid rigidity, a sure sign we are
heading toward deterioration and death, and that we rather are growing
and going toward our true destination.

            If only for the sake of sheer survival, we need to be
aware that there are certain things we need to tighten and other
things to loosen. That’s simply because circumstances change, and yet
there are things that should not change.

            We have to learn what to keep and what to let go as we
move along in life. And so we need to analyze things so we can
distinguish between what is essential, necessary and indispensable in
our life, on the one hand, and on the other, what is incidental,
contingent and disposable.

            Another way of saying this is that we need to know what
our true ultimate end is and what are merely the means to it. Not that
the means are unimportant. We just have to distinguish which is which,
and act in accordance to that distinction. Sad to say, there is a lot
of confusion in this area, the means often regarded as the end, and
vice-versa.

            For all this, we have to assume a metaphysical approach to
things. And this is where our basic problem lies. Metaphysics is still
unknown to many of us. And those who know it are often confined in
their academic world of abstract ideas. There’s hardly any effort to
encourage people to think metaphysically.

            Most people nowadays are contented to base their thinking
mainly on what their senses perceive, and so their reactions are often
knee-jerk, emotional and sentimental, shallow.

            Influences coming from our culture, social background,
etc., can also go into people thinking, lending some texture to our
thoughts. At best, the sciences, arts and modern technology contribute
a lot in shaping our thoughts. But unless our thinking is
metaphysical, we would be missing the most important part of how to
understand things in life.

            The metaphysical approach certainly does not ignore how
things are in their immediate and concrete reality. But it goes beyond
that level. It goes further than the sensible world to examine the
ultimate causes of things. These causes are usually not seen nor felt.

            It’s an approach that enters into the ethos and the
spiritual underpinnings of the concrete realities, and leads us to the
supernatural world and ultimately to God, from whom we come and to
whom we belong. That is the distinctive contribution of metaphysics.

            If we can acknowledge a certain organic hierarchy among
the sciences, metaphysics should actually occupy pride of place, since
it integrates the inputs of all the other sciences and relates them to
their ultimate causes and end. It respects an inter-disciplinary tack.

            It is therefore a very important science. And it’s just
unfortunate that it is hardly appreciated as it is. Only very few are
interested in it, and worse, those in it do not seem to know how to
relate their studies and findings to the here-and-now world.

            When we have a metaphysical mind, we would know what have
absolute and universal value, and what have relative and variable
value. This would lead us to know the exclusivity of truth and the
inclusivity of charity, what to be strict and what to be lenient in,
what to tighten and what to loosen.

            When we have a metaphysical mind, we can be more
broad-minded and avoid narrow-mindedness, we can be more open to the
way other people are and avoid bigotry and stereotyping.

            When we have a metaphysical mind, we would know that we
should not be too attached to our opinions, our taste and preferences,
our biases brought about by our profession and other conditionings,
social, economic, political, cultural, historical, etc.

            When we have a metaphysical mind, we would know what to
tighten in the midst of a constant flux of life. We need to take care
of our continuing formation, ever sharpening our dispositions so that
we would always be eager to know and pursue our ultimate end.

            There will always be certain things in life that tend to
blur our vision of the fundamental and ultimate in our life. We have
to be careful of the distracting effects of our concerns, problems,
challenges and trials, plus the allurements in the world, not to
mention the tricks and temptations of the devil.

The two sons

THE parable of the two sons (Mt 21,28-32) is very
instructive about a particular aspect of our human condition, weakened
as it is by sin. Yes, we tend to be inconsistent, and with that, are
prone to other related anomalies like deceit, hypocrisy and
pretension.

            But we can also change. There is always hope in spite of
that tendency. We have to continually remind ourselves that while we
may be beset with all sorts of crazy anomalies, there is always hope,
there is always some cure, there’s a good chance for conversion and
transformation.

            As the parable narrates, the first son said ‘no’ to his
father’s request to work in the vineyard, but later on changed his
mind and worked. The other son said ‘yes’ but did not go.

            When Christ asked his listeners who between the sons did
the father’s will, they answered the first, and Christ told them they
were correct in saying so. That, of course, tells us that more than
words, it is deeds that would fulfil God’s will or the will of
anybody, for that matter.

            We have to be ready to tackle this particular and, sad to
say, very common problem of ours, making use of every opportunity we
can be true to our words that in turn should be true to the will of
anyone who has lawful authority over us and ultimately to God, the
very source of authority.

            Consistency has to be viewed in the context of our
relation to God, since it is in that relation that the proper
delineation of all our other relations, either to persons or to
things, events and issues would be properly developed and lived.

            God is the source of all good things, of truth and unity.
He is the vine from which we as branches grow. Separated from him,
there’s no other consequence but to be fragmented, to wither and die
eventually.

            So, if we are truly interested in developing a strong
consistency or unity of life, we need not look further to see where we
can have it or where we can start. It’s in our relation with God,
nourished by faith, hope and charity that God himself gives us in
abundance.

            And for this faith, hope and charity to effectively shape
our life, we have to dispose ourselves to them properly by being
humble, by realizing that we by ourselves, no matter how brilliant or
powerful our natural talents and powers may be, can only go so far
without God.

            We need to deepen our humility, something that we should
never take for granted. We can never think that we are already humble
enough. We need to realize that deep in our consciousness, there is
always a tendency of ourselves to assert ourselves over God and over
any other authority.

            Christ himself has shown us the way by emptying himself.
Let’s listen again to what St. Paul once said about the self-emptying
(kenosis) of Christ: “Let this mind be in you, which was also in
Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to
be equal with God.

            “But he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant,
being made in the likeness of men, and in habit found as a man. He
humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of
the cross.” (Phil 2,5-8)

            This self-emptying is indispensable in our life. We need
to do everything to be able to achieve that, obviously doing it also
with utmost naturalness, the way Christ himself did it.

            He did not go around announcing he was the Redeemer. He
just let his deeds and his miracles do the talking more than his words
which were not lacking either. When some people wanted to proclaim him
king, he escaped. When he had enter Jerusalem to claim his kingship,
he rode on a donkey.

            We have to see the indispensable value of humility to
nourish our faith, hope and charity that in turn would nourish our
strong unity of life. It is this humility that enabled Christ to
accept the will of his Father to offer his life on the cross for our
salvation.

            “Father,” he said in the agony in the garden, “if it is
your will, let this cup pass by me, but not my will but yours be
done.” This submission of one’s will to God’s will is the ultimate
expression of humility that allows faith, hope and charity to flourish
and a unity of life to come as a consequence.